The OCU denounces the Bank of Spain for charging commissions for testamentary procedures | EUROtoday

The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has reported to the Bank of Spain that some banking entities are “inappropriately” charging commissions. between 80 and 100 euros plus VAT to heirs for receiving the inheritance of a deceased particular person.

This was introduced in an announcement, during which he defined that this testamentary process, via which the kin of a deceased particular person take the notarial deed to the financial institution to obtain the cash from the deceased's accounts and thus move it on to his professional ones. heirs, shouldn’t be charged.

“The truth is that entities such as Banco Sabadell, Unicaja and Abanca have stopped charging, others such as ING Direct, Deutsche Bank and Cajamar do not charge, however, there are many entities that continue to charge these illegal commissions,” he warned.

In this regard, he added that, in line with the Bank of Spain, the mere examine and verification of the testamentary documentation It is an inside exercise of the entity itself which he does in his personal curiosity and which, due to this fact, doesn’t contain the supply of a banking serviceor, due to this fact “the collection of commissions is not appropriate.”

“Likewise, the Bank of Spain understands that, if this were not the case, it would be an imposition by the entities, which the heirs have no choice but to accept if they want to dispose of the funds to which they are legitimately entitled, imposition “which matches towards the precept of freedom of contract,” he added, adding that the heirs are not obliged to open accounts in the bank to receive the inheritance of a deceased, nor to pay for the certificate of positions on the date of death. .

Claims about testamentary

Claims regarding wills amount to a total of 1,249according to the Bank of Spain's 2022 report, which represents 3.7% of the total claims and the OCU has carried out a study on the behavior of financial entities in the processes of taking possession of assets of the deceased people.

The “most notable” have been, in his opinion, that 60% of those who have had to “cope with” the processing of a will before a financial institution rate it as “unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory.”

In addition, 65% confirm having had “some impediment or downside” with the banking entity; in almost 20% of the inheritances processed, they were forced to contract a product at the entity as a requirement to deliver the different products of the deceased person and to 30% of those surveyed was the “lack of ample data or directions.”

“Waiting instances have additionally been a serious downside. Procedures can final a number of months and it isn’t uncommon to search out processes that final six months (45%) or greater than a 12 months (22%),” he added.

In this context, I advocate “standardize” the probate processing process for all banking entities and because the service is provided “in an unequivocal method, making a protocol with the steps to observe, together with phases of the method, documentation to be delivered and most interval to proceed with the supply of the products or their change of possession with the corresponding sanctions to the banking entities in case of non-compliance”.

To this end, it proposes a maximum processing period of 15 days from when the heirs have submitted all the necessary documentation and that late payment interest be sanctioned in favor of the heirs who exceed it.